Japan Stories

Stories I've recorded the past two weeks of living in Japan.

9/10/08

One of Tyler's roommates keeps falling asleep in Tyler's bed. Tyler says they're just talking, then they wander into his room, still talking. Then Ko lays down and covers up, still talking. Then they stop talking for a second and when Tyler turns around, Ko is fast asleep. So Tyler turns off the light, locks the door, and leaves like he's not even there.

There is a legendary dog statue in Shibuya. Apparently about 70 or 80 years ago, a man's dog used to wait for him there every day after work, and when the man died, the dog continued to wait. So they built a statue in the station to commemorate the dog.

In contrast to Tyler's roommate, Erik (a classmate) gets no sleep! He lives in a men's dorm (which has no private rooms or air conditioning) and he's busy all day and can't go to sleep until his roommate does, usually around 2 a.m. He says he sometimes naps during the day, but only sleep for about four hours a night. I'm so lucky to have my own room!

Zee is Italian, has been in Italy all her life save for one years in Chicago for college, and because her mother and aunt are American and helped raise her and spoke English to her, she has a nearly flawless American accent. it's disconcerting when she says she's Italian and she sounds so American, or at least it was at first. I think I'm getting used to it now.

For the first time today, I sat with friends in Japan and laughed and mad stupid jokes and was completely at home. I can't believe I've only know these people for 9 days! We get along like we've known each other forever.

9/14/08

Erykah, Eyrun, and I ended up at a shrine festival yesterday when we were visiting Kichijouji. it was amazing; I'd seen shrine festivals in anime and manga, full of food and half the people in traditional clothing, but seeing it come to life was almost a shock. We even had some of the food and it was different. one thing we had was pretty much grilled bread with BBQ sauce.

A bunch of us went out for an Italian restaurant for dinner Friday night and Dominique next to me said something of which I only picked out the words "librarian" and "cute." Now the librarian at our school is cute, so I quietly agreed and Dom was confused so I was confused until finally I realized that she'd said his daughter was cute, because he was at the table right next to us. We had a laugh, (all this time I think he knew that we knew him because he kept his face turned away -- he's shy about his English) and we talked about something else, until Cori, across from us, who was apparently the only one at the table who didn't get the whole conversation, blurted out loudly, "So you think the librarian's cute?" And then everyone starts laughing as quietly as possible and Dom, red in the face, whispers, "No, I said his daughter is cute!" And we all try to gesture to his table until she realizes what she did and she starts laughing and gets red too. he left soon after that and I never saw his face even halfway turn toward us.

We had our first official dorm meeting today, and since two thirds of the students are Japanese and most of the remainder speak Japanese, much of the discussion was in Japanese. They translated everything they could, but when students started asking questions and arguing, there was no time to translate what was going on. So there were long stretches when maybe 15 or 20 of us couldn't follow. One OYR, a Middle-Eastern students who I don't know well, stood and asked that all discussion be conducted in English. There was an awkward silence and then the people in the front row explained to the leaders that he had requested more translation (they couldn't understand him for his accent) and the leaders sort of whispered amongst themselves about it and the whole thing felt really awkward. But then it seemed ok, because the leaders genuinely accept his concern, and there actually was more translation for the rest of the night. I look forward to spring, when we'll all know enough Japanese to ignore English.

9/15/08

"No offense, Eyrun, but Spanish poeple are dicks."

Z told us a story today about a friend whose boyfriend followed he to England (from Italy), and it was really romantic at first but then they got into a fight and he kept following her and they ended up arguing in the rain and finally he says, "You know what your problem is? You like me. But I love you." Apparently they started making out soon afterward. ^_^

9/16/08

I found out today that the microwave in my kitchen is also an oven, a boiler, and an ice cream maker. An ice cream maker.

On Friday during writing class, the teacher asked Cory to read the directions, which were in English. It was weird. We're so used to reading Japanese. He kept messing up.

Eyrun is the only person in this whole school who is from Iceland. She whispered something to herself in Icelandic, and it shocked her -- she isn't used to hearing it anymore.

9/17/08

Last week I had a cool moment; a Japanese girl and I bumbed into each other and at the same time she said "I'm sorry," I said "Sumimasen."

Today we had our bakayama performance, which went well. Afterward, our 'cool' teacher, Komatsu-sensei, told us about when she was a student at ICU. She had bright pink hair, loads of earrings, and always dressed punk. When she returned to teach, her former teachers didn't even recognize her! She told us that she once burned down the bakayama! She and a friend built an igloo there and doused it in water, freezing it solid. It wouldn't melt, so campus police were getting angry and were going to smash it in with axes. Komatsu wanted to do it herself, but they decided it was too much work to smash it. So they filled it with newspaper and set it on fire. The fire spread through all the grass! The campus police started to come -- they could hear the siren -- so they both ran! No one ever kew it was her, and she made us swear not to tell anyone. She used a mixture of Japanese and English when she was talking, and it was very cool.

I had just finished telling a story today at a Ramen place when Z said I had a really good American accent. She said it was clear and easy to understand and that I enunciated well. I was kind of shocked at first. It's something I've never heard before. But it made me happy.

Tyler didn't get much sleep last night because Ko fell asleep at the end of his bed. So Tyler had to curl up at the head of it.